Spin Transport in Disordered Two-Dimensional Hopping Systems with Rashba Spin-Orbit Interaction

Abstract

The influence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction on the spin dynamics of a topologically disordered hopping system is studied in this paper. This is a significant generalization of a previous investigation, where an ordered (polaronic) hopping system has been considered instead. It is found, that in the limit, where the Rashba length is large compared to the typical hopping length, the spin dynamics of a disordered system can still be described by the expressions derived for an ordered system, under the provision that one takes into account the frequency dependence of the diffusion constant and the mobility (which are determined by charge transport and are independent of spin). With these results we are able to make explicit the influence of disorder on spin related quantities as, e.g., the spin life-time in hopping systems.